Victoria Collection

Paradox's CEO, Fredrik Wester, has just finished delivering the opening press conference of the Paradox Convention 2013. Announcements included new expansions, a new game, and something involving the thunderous thespian Brian Blessed. Read on for a complete run down of the convention's revelations.

In February, War of the Roses will be getting a DLC pack that will feature the vocal talents of the sonorous Brian Blessed. No details yet on Blessed's role, but you can bet it will involve many decibels. The game will also be holding a free trial.

The Showdown Effect blasts into beta

Pre-orders for the cliché-filled 2.5D multiplayer action game will begin today. Everyone who pre-orders will get instant access to the beta.

The pre-order page isn't live yet, but it should be available at some point in the next few hours. Here's the website, and here's a trailer:

Pagans invade Crusader Kings II

Some long awaited news for the feudal feuding strategy, as playable pagans will finally be made available. The Old Gods expansion will focus on Vikings and Pagans, and add landless adventurer characters.

The chance to bother the Scandinavians as a Norse warrior has been at the top of the community's wishlist since the game's release. The Old Gods will also set Crusader Kings 2's starting date back to 867 AD.

Victoria II: The African campaign

Also to be expanded is colonial grand strategy title Victoria II. The Heart of Darkness add-on will focus on Africa, as you "compete with other colonial powers and experience international crises which require Great Power mediation if the world is to avoid war." It will also feature new naval combat.

Ship gets real

The conference also announced a brand new game, Leviathan Warships, complete with the excellent tagline: "Ship just got real."

It's a strategic action game, in which players build and customise their own fleet of warships to pit against three other players. The game will support multiplatform cross-play, with PC, Mac, iOS and Android versions planned.

This spritepack will give you 12 historically authentic modelled units for the American Civil War Era with new animations, for a more realistic and more beautiful game atmosphere. Units are equipped with muskets, sabres, kepis, hardee hats and much more.

The first expansion to Victoria II focuses on American Civil War era and enhances the political and economical aspects of the game. Carefully guide your nation from the era of absolute monarchies in the early 19th century, through expansion and colonization, to finally become a truly great power by the dawn of the 20th century.

Additionally, the rest of the Victoria catalog is 66% off today as part of the Daily Deal! Offer expires February 3rd at 10AM Pacific time.

Each of the Sprite packs introduce unique uniforms for your units. The Old Vic pack improves the interface graphics of Victoria II, adding an overall depth and feel inspired by classic Victorian offices.

You can now form the Byzantine Empire if you play as a greek state and achieve a few goals.

Playable Babylon added as a free DLC integrated in the patch.

AI Improvements* Diplomacy AI

AI will now try to influence and remove other GPs influence from countries it wants to attack

AI is more likely to cancel alliances with those that occupy their territory.

Countries which has cores in other countries no longer want to ally with them

AI less keen on expelling advisors

Fixed a bug which made the GP AI misjudge the influence gain of other GPs

AI now less likely to sphere unciv neighbors with low production output

AI now a bit more stubborn when feeling superior to another country when determining peace chance

AI should now be able to intervene in wars

AI now takes possible intervention into account when evaluating wars

Made sphere leaders slightly more friendly towards spherees

AI doesn't really like to intervene and help out countries with high badboy

AI now dislikes provinces it cannot reach even if has lots of goodie factorys and gold RGOs

AI now likes countries which can get canals built through them

Fixed a serious bug that made the AI overconfident when going to war

AI now considers neighbors more of a threat when evaluating enemies allies, and allies close to war target is considered slightly better

AI will no longer count countries in their own sphere as allies when evaluating if another country should be allied with.

Great powers will now consider allying with people outside their sphere.

AI is now less likely to break alliances.

AI can now cancel alliances because of CB against allied

There's now a small distance penalty when evaluating non-neighboring states as target of wargoals

* Economic AI

Fixed an issue with AI budget minister assuming it could take loans when it couldn't

Fixed an issue with AI budget minister not always taking the cost of the national stockpile into account

AI now tries to lower taxes for rich strata to make them invest more in projects

AI should now build and upgrade naval bases in decent positions

AI no longer tries to upgrade factories that are already being upgraded

AI should now promote more craftmen/clerks

AI will now save some more money in the budget

AI is now better at promoting Capitalists to kickstart the economy.

* Military AI

A country that has heavily occupied core territory will now mobilize

Army AI: Splits off siege forces when dealing with rebel occupied provinces

Army AI: now properly considers areas with rebels "war zones"

AI now considers Military Tactics a bit stronger when calculating troop strength

* Tech AI

tech ai should now be more resonable

AI should be a little bit better at keeping up in naval tech research.

more ai evaluation to watch out for nasty gas

Clean coal tech is now also desired by iron producers.

Electricity is now more desirable by great powers.

The AI will now focus on national focus techs if a greaterpower or having a big population.

Gamebalance Changes* Great Powers

GP intervention now requires the country to have a "Friendly" opinion of the GP

Once a GP has formed its union tag it no longer gets the free assert hegemnoy CB vs other nations with the union tag.

Assert Hegemony wargoal changed into removing the all nations within the same culture group from being either in the sphere or being vassals. It also sets the relation back to neutral.

Changed warscore for Hegemony to 6 for each sphere member or vassal

Military and industrial score now have higher theoretical maximum

Halfed impact from leaders on military score.

In order to intervene in a war, a nation targeted by a wargoal need to have at least cordial opinion of the nation wanting to intervene

Removing a country from a sphere now incurs an influence drop as well

Relation now has slightly less effect on suppressing wars if countries have valid CBs

It's no longer possible to call your sphereleader again and again into a war as a spheree

Lowered influence cost of discredit, upped the effect(-50% -> -75%)

You can no longer influence any country you have a truce with.

* Diplomacy

Its no longer possible to release satellites when at war.

Relations now have slightly more effect on military access chance

It's no longer possible to add wargoals to a side that has a Status Quo wargoal added to it

The first nation that intervenes in a war will always become warleader, subsequent joins will never become warleader

Called allies never become warleader in Status Quo has been added to that side

It's no longer possible to negotiate with minors if you have added non-annex wargoals and the other side has added status quo

All states that are annexed by a minor in a war are now added as "Free people" wargoals(up to 150 warscore worth)

Status Quo wargoal is now removed if someone annexes a minor(since it will be replaced with Free People wargoals)

No longer possible to call allies into civil war

Rebel territory is now disregarded when occupation percentage is compared.

Releasing nations now reduce infamy and prestige

* Capitalists

Capitalists are no longer restricted to building factories/railroads in the state they live in.

Capitalists now select a couple of states to invest in rather than distribute money over the entire nation

Capitalist build selection now less random, are nowmuch more likeley to listen to national focus.

Capitalist projects now responds to economic policy changes

Capitalists should now invest some of their money in projects before buying luxuaries

Capitalist should now consider available inputs when determining projects

Capitalists now better at investing in projects before their needs

Capitalists will now focus fully on creating new factories when they have none and slow down their investment to support their life needs

* Pop Migration

POPs are even less likely to move to desert or arctic provinces.

POPs are slightly more likely to move to coastal provinces

Migrating pops now understands that unemployment is not an ideal dream.

Factory workers won't move to colonies anymore.

Pops now understand that migrating where unemployment exists is bad.

Pops getting luxury goods are no longer keen on migrating.

Soldiers will not migrate to provinces where farmers and labourers are heavily unemployed.

* Pop Promotion

Pops will no longer promote away from what a national focus desires.

Fixed a few problems which caused pops to demote when they shouldn't.

Pops promoting gets consciousness to 0 now.

Pops are less likely to promote to capitalists where there is low amount of beurucrats or if they have low literacy.

Artisans will not consider becoming capitalists if the capitalists are not well off.

Capitalists are now less likely to be promoted in low pop areas or if they are non-accepted culture.

Pops are less likely to become bureaucrats if the admin slider is low.

Low literacy is now a proper penalty on beuruecrat promotion.

Rebalanced crime slider impact on bureaucrat promotion.

Pops will not promote to aristocrats if aristocrats can't get all luxury goods.

Pops promoting to bureuacrats of accepted culture will not auto-assimilate into non-accepted.

Pops will no longer want to become aristocrats if there is already 2% in a province.

Clergy will not promote to beuruecrats if there is more spending on clergy than on beurues.

Clergy will not promote to artistocrats if you fully fund clergy.

Clergy and Literacy now impact researchspeed more and country status less.

Clergy is no longer desired to promote to when the optimal is reached.

Made a small increase in promotion for farmers and labourers to craftsmen if there is work for them.

Pops will not promote to soldiers if there is lots of soldier pops not recruited.

Pops are less likely to become soldiers if payment is bad.

Craftsmen doing well is now far more likely to promote to clerks.

Pops will not promote to officers if already at optimal cap percentage unless a national focus is there.

* Politics

Conservatives now properly allow social reforms at scaled militancy.

Fixed a consistency with militancy to support reform calculation.

There is now less of a militancy decrease when enacting a reform.

You can now only change ruling party once a year.

Ideology changing on pops from events is no longer divided by 100.

You can now release union tag countries if nobody with this tag exists (crush krakow->release poland->victory)

Ruling party is now set to one of the same ideology you had, after a tag change.

Free peoples now work on union tag countries that already exists

Pops of the primary culture will never assimilate now.

* Revolutions

Rebels of union tags can now spawn if no country with culture exist

Reliability is now applied correctly.

Rebels now have a bit better organisation, and will be more likely to form in bigger armies.

Inventions are now inherited when a country is formed.

When a rebellion ends in any way, all pops who symphatized with that rebelfaction lose militancy.

Pan-nationalists are now limited in spawning, not in enforcing

Rebelfactions grow stronger a little faster now.

Provinces seceding from events will now get militancy&consciousness reset.

Government change is now updated when rebels enforce their demands, thust nationalists rising under one fog wont change the country they broke free from when they do so, should that country had changed during their insurection.

All alliances, SoIs and influence cleared by revolutions

Rebels are now far less likely to rise on their own.

General risings will now set the organisation of a faction to 0.

Rebel organisation gains are now colored correctly.

Soldiers now only revolt when the rest of the faction is close to ready to rise.

Getting a revolution succeeding in your country now reduces 10% of your current prestige instead of -5.

* Armies

Naturalbornleader trait is now good.

Experience for already recruited troops are now affected from tech discoveries the next time they get some r&r.

Units forced to retreat now cancel previous movement before doing so.

Gas is now a bit less awesome, also the modifier is exported in defines for tweaking

Artillery added to combat after first day is now more likely to avoid frontline duties.

Pops now take higher casualties when a unit takes damage.

Battles at endgame now gets bloodier, and attack value is only for attacker and defend value for defender, with each value giving +10% extra damage dealt.

Discipline now reduces morale damage taken only.

Units in exile status will not attempt to siege which they weren't allowed to in the first case.

If you have access to a countries territory, you also have access through its vassals.

* Navies

Fleets now check hull value instead of number of ships for "overrun".

Ships now costs about 20x as much to upkeep.

Canals are now blocked if the controller is hostile.

Each level of navalbase now gives a little less range.

Admirals should no longer get traits and backgrounds that affect reliability.

* Mobilisation

Mobilised troops will not transfer over automatically when a province is taken.

Only accepted and primary cultures can be mobilized now.

* Technology

Literacy gain doubled.

Made a large overhaul of how often inventions spawn and which spawn for each country and when.

Plurality is now far worse for tech research.

Reworked a few inventions that reduced plurality to instead modify other aspects.

Education efficiency inventions are now far better.

Aesthetic techs now increase prestige impacts by a bigger margin than before.

Philosophy techs now increase research speed instead of prestige.

Psychology techs now affect reinforcement rate and experience of regulars.

Social Thought techs are now both colonisation and education efficiency.

Market functionality techs are now affecting great power influence.

Organisation techs now affects output.

Reduced factory out effect from power techs, front loaded the RGO tech effects so the total bonus are same but your receive more earlier.

Reduced effect of pop-growth inventions.

Gas-attack and defend is now triggered from a later tech, and gas-defend is only possible to get from fighting with countries that have gas-attack.

Rebalanced effects from some naval inventions. Steamer Transports are now far worse, while Dreadnoughts and Cruisers got a nice buff.

* Economy

Added more pre-reqs to the formations of canals.

Factory output are now affected by your economic policy. LF is by far the best.

Rebalanced goods demands for pops.

Added demand for fuel at various places.

Pop projects are now re-evaluated if they building a new/expanding factory and factories are added to state, either conquered or player-built, but only if there aren't enough workers

Under Lassiez Faire, each state can now have 1 closed factory(2 if they are the only factories in the state)

Factories can now be upgraded to far higher levels than just 5, if needed.

Maintenance goods are now only consumed if they make a difference to the output

check if countries can take loans in budget ai now also checks bankruptcy

fixed an overflow issue when calculating potential project profits

Only cultured bureaucrats now contributes to tax efficiency

Factories no longer skip buying input if the input good is also needed for maintanace.

Pop demands in non-colonial territories is now increased by plurality.